DeSantis Accuses Biden of Playing Politics With Tornado Relief Funds: ‘Thumb Their Nose’ at Florida

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) accused the Biden administration on Friday of playing politics with federal disaster aid for tornado victims in his state.

Florida requested Individual Assistance for Lee and Charlotte counties on Jan. 24 after tornadoes ripped through the area on Jan. 16. The Federal Emergency Management Agency denied that request on Tuesday saying the damage “was not of such severity and magnitude as to be beyond the capabilities of the state, affected local governments, and voluntary agencies.”

DeSantis vowed to appeal the decision while speaking to the press from a Fort Myers mobile home community.

“These things should be above politics when people have needs like this,” DeSantis said. “Since Biden’s been president, seems like whatever they can do to thumb their nose at Florida, you know, they try to do it.”

“I mean, they cut our monoclonal antibody funding. It’s true,” DeSantis charged, bringing Covid-19 politics into the mix. DeSantis is correct that the funding was cut, but he omitted the reason the federal government had cited: that monoclonal antibodies were not effective against the Omicron variant and the feds preferred to save the scarce treatments for variants where they would be able to help.

DeSantis added:

All these state agencies have been involved in it, and we’re happy to do that, but we also want to be able to turn on this Individual Assistance for folks, because I think it will help them just in terms of the physical and be able to have a place to stay, but I also think it will help them with peace of mind and with some emotional security.

The governor continued, noting the special needs of the communities hit by the tornadoes, “So these are a lot of senior citizens, a lot of folks’ sole source of income is Social Security, so if you’re going to have an Individual Assistance program, you know, I think this would be the type of thing that you would want to use it for, so we are sending that appeal and we’re going to keep on fighting to help Floridians.”

DeSantis and Biden struck a unified tone in the wake of the deadly Surfside condo collapse last summer. At the time DeSantis told Biden that the federal response “has been great,” adding, “You guys have not only been supportive at the federal level, but we’ve had no bureaucracy.”

“I promise you, there will be none,” Biden said in response, vowing to cut red tape.

Since, however, pundits have noted that Biden and DeSantis publicly trading barbs and battling on different issues has helped to raise DeSantis’ national profile as many believe he is eyeing a 2024 presidential run.

Biden and DeSantis have been at odds over Covid-19 restrictions, the use of monoclonal treatments for Covid-19 patients, Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill, and now disaster relief.